“Let’s see how this plays out.” I leaned against the fence that would protect the burgeoning nettles in our plot from these trampling boots well enough. My neighbours’ smug turnips were similarly defended with hurdles and hedges set to foil browsers sneaking down from the woods.

“Mercenaries.” Zigrida’s contempt was withering. “Fighting for no more reason than cats in a gutter.”

I held my tongue. Brawls were hardly uncommon in the mercenary camps I’d traversed over the years, especially at the end of a long and boring winter as the men geared themselves up for the perils and profits of a new season’s battles. Halice wouldn’t be that concerned, as long as no one suffered any real hurt. There was plenty of blood staining shirts and jerkins but no one was on the ground where boots might splinter ribs to gut a man from the inside out. Some had paired off in wrestling holds, feet digging into the dirt before sweeping forward to try and cut the foe’s legs out from under him. I saw two men falling all of a piece as neither would let go the grip they had under each other’s armpits. Scrambling apart in the dust, one offered his hand to the other, pulling him clear of Glane who was fighting his own little battle. From what I could see, he wasn’t the only colonist glad of a chance to let rip, paying back slights imagined and intentional stored up over the last few seasons.

As the swirling fight swept the pair in my direction, I recognised the mercenary Glane was punishing with lightning fast blows, heedless of the damage to his own fists. The lad would learn that lesson the hard way. His victim was a burly bruiser called Tavie, blood staining his grimy shirt as it dripped from a split lower lip. A winter’s laziness had left a belly on him like a woman scant days from childbed and he was paying a heavy price for such sloth. Then I saw Tavie decide to level the odds and reach for a dagger at his belt.

“No you don’t!” I snapped my fingers in Zigrida’s direction but didn’t take my eyes off the fat mercenary. Knife poised, he was advancing on the hapless Glane who at least had the sense to retreat as fast as the scuffles all around him allowed, chance sending him scuttling towards me. I scooped up a stone from a pile I’d dug from our supposed vegetable patch in an uncharacteristic fit of enthusiasm the previous autumn. I weighed the stone in my hand, hard and heavy with one jagged edge raw against my palm. Halice is the one with the height and heft to take up a sword alongside the men and make them eat their mockery. I’ve neither the skills nor the inclination so I’ve cultivated an accurate throwing arm. What I needed now was the chance to hit Tavie without braining some other fool who got in the way, and preferably before he caught up with Glane.

I saw my moment and took it. The rock hit Tavie hard in the meat of his knife arm. The distraction gave Glane an instant to gather his flagging strength and fraying nerve. The smack of his fist into the side of the mercenary’s head was clearly audible over the uproar all around and I winced.

It was Glane’s bad luck he knocked Tavie into Peyt. The fortunes of the fight had temporarily driven the tall mercenary away from Deglain. Furious, he turned to find out who had just dropped his man at his feet.

“Fighting for your sister’s honour?” A predatory smile curved Peyt’s lip as he leered at Glane. “What a waste of effort!”

“You lay one filthy hand on my sister and I’ll cut it off.” A treacherous break in Glane’s voice betrayed his youth. Young enough to be stupid enough to get himself killed, he pulled out his own workaday belt knife and levelled the inadequate blade. Peyt stepped back but only far enough to scoop up the longer, sharper dagger that Tavie had dropped.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you a turn on the spit, when I’ve beaten a bit of humility into you, see how you compare with your sister? How about I ram that oyster-sticker up your hairless arse when I’m done with it?” I knew Peyt’s taste didn’t run to boys but the threat disconcerted the lad, just as Peyt intended. He dropped into the crouch of the practised knife fighter. I could see Glane’s hand trembling, his back to me and our fence blocking any further retreat. The boy tried to edge away. Peyt darted forward and I made my move.

My bucket of water caught the mercenary full in the face. The chill and the shock left him gasping in momentary confusion, his startled yell harsh enough to startle everyone into stillness now the first rush of enthusiasm for bloodshed was passing.

“Glane!” I snapped with biting emphasis. “Put that knife away and get yourself home.”

A nicely brought up boy, the habit of obedience to an older female voice had him turning tail before recollection of his manly duty prompted him to go and hide behind Deglain instead.

Deprived of his target as he scraped sodden hair out of his eyes, Peyt turned an ugly scowl on me. “Livak! You pox-ridden bitch!”

“Good morning to you too.” I smiled at him. “I saw you hadn’t bathed yet, so I thought I’d save you the trouble of fetching your own water.”

He jabbed a menacing finger at me. “I’ll give you trouble, rag-mop.”

“You don’t want to do that,” I assured him, still smiling. The fence was high enough that Peyt would have to vault it to get at me and I’d be inside the house and bolting the door before he got a foot on the palings.

“Who’s going to stop me?” Peyt took a menacing step towards me. Everyone else abandoned their scuffles to watch this new entertainment. “Where’s your man? How about a torn smock from me to teach you your place is on your back and lifting your heels?”

“You lay a finger on her and I’ll make you eat your own stones,” snarled Deglain but Peyt’s cronies were a solid barrier between him and me.

I looked past Peyt and smiled. “Thanks all the same, Deg, but Peyt’s got to learn that size really doesn’t matter.”

Peyt’s glower turned into an unpleasant smirk, as aware as anyone else that he topped me by a head and more. “I think you’ll find it does, you draggle-arsed whore.”

I shook my head, taunting him with mock disappointment. “When are you going to learn, Peyt?”

He was within a stride of the fence now, face intent like a fox with a mouse in its sights. “Learn what?”

I took a pace back to keep him coming. “Which women are good for more than easing the ache in your breeches. We can take care of ourselves.”

“You’re backing yourself against me?” He barked a curt laugh. “That’s worth a prince’s ransom!”

Then Halice punched him hard in the back of the head. Before he could recover enough to think of raising his knife, she had one hand twisted in his lank black hair, jerking his head back to apply an expert stranglehold all the more effectively with her other arm. Much the same height and with broader shoulders, she had no trouble holding him.

“No, but I’ll back Halice against you any day from Solstice to Equinox,” I told Peyt. The fury in his eyes faded to an instant of panic and then to bitter blankness as Halice choked him senseless. Zigrida’s grandson was wide eyed and out of breath behind her and I winked at the child who scurried back to his grandam.

Halice dropped the limp, unconscious Peyt to the ground.

“Dump him in his bed and when he wakes up—if he wakes up—he can come to me and take his punishment for this little nonsense.” She turned to scowl at the shifty crowd, none of whom dared challenge her authority. “When you’ve dumped him, get yourselves down to the riverside and tell Minare I sent you. If you’re idle enough to be this stupid, he’ll make use of you. Move!” Her words goaded the mercenaries into a hasty retreat. Peyt half carried, half dragged away, by two of his cronies.

Halice turned her scorching glare on the colonists, dark eyes hard and unreadable. “You don’t have better things to do than this?” She bent to pick up Peyt’s fallen dagger and threw it to me.